I’ve often struggled with pearl borders. I try to do them with buttercream most of the time, but I don’t think I’m very good at it. Even with the proper tips, I’ve never been able to do it perfectly. They end up egg shaped or pointy. I have to poke each one with my finger tip once they set up a bit to get them rounded. It’s frustrating. I’ve never taken a class or had a lesson from anyone on anything, I barely know how to make proper borders in general. It’s always something I’ve struggled with!
I like fondant much more than buttercream. I know it better. It’s smoother, it’s more predictable… I love fondant!
However, the idea of rolling a million tiny pearls one at a time is obviously not appealing. I needed a better way. So, as always, I came up with a better way.

It’s so obvious that I’m sure this is already a thing. That you can buy… somewhere. I don’t know. I know there are magical places someplace where you can buy magical cake decorating stuff. I’ve never been anyplace like that though. So I made this up.

First I got some of my Amazing Mold Putty as featured in one of my other tutorials.
I rolled a long strip of it and pressed a (*cough*fake*cough*) pearl necklace into it, sort of wrapping it around it, but not all the way.
When it dried, I popped the necklace out and was left with a mold of it. :)
(disclaimer: totally washed the necklace in the dishwasher before this to attempt good sterilization lol)

Then I rolled out a thin snake of fondant about the length of the mold. I pressed it into the mold and squished it together.

Then I popped it out of the mold!

Just what I wanted!

I was way happy with the first cake I tried it out with! What a time saver. I trimmed off the pinched edge left by the mold and ran a thin line of butter cream around the bottom of the cakes. Then just pressed the pearls into the frosting. It worked just great!